"'kthxbye' is the pinnacle of English's advancement, shortening
'All correct, Thank you, God be with you.' into seven lowercase
letters. Humanity is doomed." -- kaeru in Urban Dictionary
Whoever said that money cannot buy happiness has not checked
out the Omega-3 Fatty Acids level available OTC in Japanese
cuisine. - Siderea
Honey. You don't really think that fantasizing about blowing
people's heads off in the mall could ever take the place of you,
do you? Just wait over there while I run over this hooker.
- Sanpaku on computer games
I'm approaching a literary singluarity; if book acquisition
continues at this pace without getting a more voluminous
apartment in which to store them, nuclear fusion is iminent.
-- Tibicen
"I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of
the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with
someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of
knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn
into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't
ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their
knives." -- Molly Ivins
The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there
should be capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we
just take the safety labels off of everything and let the
problem solve itself?
- Anonymous
It's sort of like when you've been trying to get two acquaintances
to meet and talk to each other, but there's all these mishaps
that occur, and finally, they talk, and get along pretty well,
until one day one realizes that the other one talks too fucking
much and segfaults in their face.
- dr4b on Perl-Excel integration
It's becoming a hobby, which is the term I like to use
because "obsession" sounds bad.
- Chris Newell
When the aliens come, it will be fen who communicate with
them. And you know why? It's not just because, well,
science fiction fans have THOUGHT about aliens more
than most people. No, it's because, at a science
fiction convention, you can expect that a shomer
n'giah Orthodox Jew will talk to a leather-clad
dominatrix and someone dressed in Regency garb. As
friends. About hobbit pornography.
- Xiphias
"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards
who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."
--- August Strindberg, A Madman's Diary, 1895
[The buffer overflow] was the number one cause of
hacks and worms in the olden days before Microsoft
Outlook made hacking easy enough for teenagers to do.
-- Joel on Software
I have always wished that my computer would be as
easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true.
I no longer know how to use my telephone.
-- Bjarne Stroustrup
On writing autobiographies:
I guess, in my mind, my "self-narrative" is actually
more of a database table than a list. They're asking
me "how is the information ordered?" and I keep
scratching my head and saying "tell me how you want
it ordered and I can write any SELECT you want!"
-- Tibicen
The Senate has passed a bill to move the Director of
Homeland Security up to 8th in the line of presidential
succession. In the event that the President, Vice
President, Speaker of the House, President Pro Tempore
of the senate, and those other four guys are all wiped
out by a terrorist attack, do we really want the
country to be run by the guy whose job it was to make
sure something like that didn't happen?
-- kimberlogic@livejournal.com
All it takes for bad English to prevail is for literate
people to do nothing.
-- Dan Kimmel
Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere.
On choosing an SCA period for a Jewish persona:
"I chose to be Sephardi because, well, they're the cool ones,
and also I assumed that playing an Ashkenazi was just piety,
oppression, and a pogrom each Thursday whether you needed it
or not."
- Raquel (Hasoferet@aol.com)
"The actions taken by the New Hampshire Episcopalians are
an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful
that the church's founder, Henry VIII, and his wife
Catherine of Aragon, his wife Anne Boleyn, his wife
Jane Seymour, his wife Anne of Cleves, his wife
Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no
longer here to suffer through this assault on
traditional Christian marriage."
-- a Los Angeles Times editorial
"Visitor teaches town to stand up to the local
bullies" is the plot of an awful lot of Westerns,
of some large fraction of "Kung Fu" episodes, of a
good percentage of episodes of "The Incredible Hulk"
or "The Fugitive" ... hell, with all the traveling
they did, there's probably an episode of "The Partridge
Family" built around the same thing, albeit with
stranger outfits and musical interludes.
-- Tim Lynch, commenting on an Enterprise episode
I've started referring to the proposed action against
Iraq as Desert Storm 1.1, since it reminds me of a
Microsoft upgrade: it's expensive, most people aren't
sure they want it, and it probably won't work.
--Kevin G. Barkes
Regard as trifling the great good you did to others,
and as enormous the little good others did to you.
- Talmud: Derek Eretz
Last night I found myself behind a car with a bumper
sticker saying, "Follow me to Jesus." And I wondered
what would happen if I did. What would they have done
if I just started following them all the way home? I'd
pull up at their house and be like, "Ok, where is he?"
- Beaniekins
Birds of a feather flock together and aim for your car.
When I can't be kind, I try to have the decency
to be vague.
The real art of conversation is not only to say
the right thing at the right time, but also to leave
unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
The older you get, the tougher it is to lose
weight, because by then your body and your
fat are really good friends.
The sole purpose of a child's middle name is
so he can tell when he's really in trouble.
Suppose you don't believe in God and that you and
another atheist friend begin to discuss the merits
of belief in God. Suppose additionally that for the
sake of argument you decide to defend God, although
you are in fact confident in his nonexistence. Are
you still playing devil's advocate?
-- Nick Jong
"It's not the verbing that weirds the language, it's the
renounification."
-- Marc LeBlanc
Re: Better Political Speechwriting
"Zathras look at budget deficit, says, not good. Stop
spending. But no one ever listen to Zathras. But one day,
everybody listen. Then, Zathras elected. Zathras will be
great president. Someday even have face printed on money.
Then, everybody have Zathras face in pants. It is good to
be president."
-- JMS
vi is really easy, once you learn the fundamental truth, which
is that vi has two modes: one that beeps at you, and another
that corrupts your data.
-- Unknown
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world:
those who understand binary, and those who don't.
-- Unknown
Veggie eaters are just people who can't catch real food.
-- Bucky (Get Fuzzy)
His troops would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.
-- source (and target) unknown
Writing software is not like building bridges because
halfway through the project some dumbass from marketing
doesn't come down and tell you that concrete is out and
so it needs to be a steel bridge. Oh, and those tacky
cables have got to go -- the focus group hated them.
--john@iastate.edu on slashdot
"The Web brings people together because no matter what kind
of a twisted sexual mutant you happen to be, you've got millions
of pals out there. Type in 'Find people that have sex with goats
that are on fire' and the computer will say, 'Specify type of goat.'"
- Rich Jeni
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows
other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes
through their pockets for loose grammar."
--- James D. Nicoll
All the king's horses and all the king's men
couldn't put this premise together again.
- Jamahl Epsicokhan commenting on a Voyager plot
Seen on the Net:
"The cup is half empty. Deal with it."
Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.
Y'know that logic puzzle with the fox, the goose and the grain?
What kind of farmer owns a *fox*? -- John Stracke
For the life of me, I've never understood why people dismiss the
importance of "semantics" in communication. After all, if semantics
had no purpleness, you'd slitheringly go bold at by-sit it I'm
climbing.
-- Heather Rose Jones
Rain -- violent torrents of it, rain like fetid water from a
God-sized pot of pasta strained through a sky-wide colander,
rain as Noah knew it, flaying the shuddering trees, whipping
the whitecapped waters, violating the sodden firmament, purging
purity and filth alike from the land, rain without mercy,
without surcease, incontinent rain, turning to intermittent
showers overnight with partial clearing Tuesday.
- seen on the net (source unknown)
The only things for sure in this life are
Death and Taxes...and Taxes are optional
as long as you don't care where you die!
"Stop slouching toward Bethlehem!" -- The Mother of the Beast
If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you
do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.
-- Mark Twain
You know you're among Jewish geeks when...
1. the Quakeathon *ends* on Friday afternoon, rather than *start*.
2. the phrase "Amalek of Borg" makes sense...
3. someone is denounced for diverting a Halakhic discussion
to the implications of event X where P(X) < P(sun going nova)
- Omri Schwarz
The Peter Principle:
In every hierarchy, whether it be government or business, each
employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence; every post
tends to be filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties.
Corollaries:
1. Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
2. Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet
reached their level of incompetence.
3. If at first you don't succeed, try something else.
The universe hates you. Deal with it.
--S. Harper, Andromeda
Pre Internet: Look at those clouds. It's going to rain.
Post Internet: lok at tHOz CLOWDZ!!!!!!!! IMHOFYIASAP
its goying to cLICK HeRe!!!!!! B-)
-- Author unknown
"As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual
certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life
- so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so
you can meet girls." -- M. Cartmill
"UNIX is very user-friendly, it's just very particular about who
its friends are."
(source unknown)
RTFMA: Read the manual, SIR!
A wizard is a band-aid for a poorly-designed user interface.
-- Overheard at SIGDOC 2000
Trouble occasionally needs to be stirred up to prevent it from
becoming lumpy.
-- Cassadoria
Coke in, code out.
Friends don't let friends use Outlook.
-- Rick Brown (?)
The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first
female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she
was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night
before.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
For those in the know, potrzebie is truly necessary.
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having
the ability to learn from the experience of
others, are also remarkable for their apparent
disinclination to do so." -Douglas Adams
I have no problem with hunting for food. But hunting will never
be a sport until deer are issued Uzis and rabbits are taught to
lay claymores.
Larry Kirby
Yesterday it worked
Today it is not working
Windows is like that.
Gold! Y'know they always show burly pirates carrying large chests of
gold? Two cubic feet of solid gold, the size of a common cardboard
"book box," or a little larger than a copy-paper box, would weigh 2,332
pounds -- and would be worth about $11M these days. Carry *that*
pirate-boy! (Calculations available upon request.)
-- Cynthia du Pri Argent
From "Top 10 reasons to start keeping kosher":
5. Every spring, you're obligated to throw out that
unrecognizable green growth germinating in the back of your
refrigerator.
(Courtesy of Ohr Somayach.)
Kindling fire is biblical. Elevators are interpretation.
- Tibor on halachic interpretation
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly
making exciting discoveries.
A. A. Milne
"I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the use of an angelic (or seemingly
angelic) character, whose likes have been written about for, oh, about
4,000 years, is ripping off Star Trek, has his head so thoroughly up
his ass as to have blipped into an entirely new intestinally-based
reality and desperately needs to get a wider frame of reference." -jms
To get answers from usenet, don't ask questions: post errors.
There are three kinds of men:
The one that learns by reading.
The few who learn by observation.
The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
Godwin's Law: prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the
probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread
is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever
argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the
existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups.
One who gives coin to the poor is rewarded with six blessings, but
one who pledges to a charity receives a free tote bag.
David Bader
"History doesn't always repeat itself... sometimes it just
screams 'Why don't you listen when I'm talking to you?' and
lets fly with a club." JWC,Jr.
If music be the food of love, then some of it be the Twinkies of
dysfunctional relationships.
-- Avram Grumer
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
--Barry Goldwater, in a speech written by William Safire
"Had God not given us the Torah, we would have learned the laws of
modesty from cats." -- Talmudic saying.
I used to be an athiest, but I had to give it up because I had
nothing to say during a blowjob. "Oh -- Random Chance, Random
Chance -- RANDOM CHANCE!!" just doesn't express the gravity of
the situation.
-- Kevin (fnord@cruzers.com)
We doubt that even so eminent a composer as Irving Berlin should be
permitted to claim a property interest in iambic pentameter.
- (some) Court of Appeals, ruling on song parodies and copyright
Let me be a free man -- free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to
trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the
religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself -- and I
will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.
In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat (Chief Joseph), 1879
I pray you forgive me my ramblings, my humors are most unbalanced as
they ever are this time of year. As soon as the leaves start to open, I
have too much of the cold and wet phlegmatic humours. Perhaps I need to
eat food that is hotter and drier to counteract this. That, or take
some more Claritin.
--Dyfan ap Iago
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-- G. Bernard Shaw
War has ended, not with the bang of a bomb, but with the gentle
whisper of crashing software.
-- Gerard Stafleu
SCSI is *NOT* magic. There are *fundamental technical reasons* why it
is necessary to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain now and then.
-- jfw@proteon.com (John Woods)
[on SCA bureaucracy:]
One waiver to rule them all, one waiver to bind them, one waiver
to bring them all and in the darkness savage their legal rights.
-- Tibor of Rock Valley
On the other hand, if XBrew thinks that I was "flaming just for the
sake of flaming" then I suspect he has no idea how restrained my language
has been compared to what I'm capable of if I choose, and compared to my
full and complete opinion of him, his intellect, his ability to think
logically, and his intellectual honesty.
-- Tangwystyl (rec.org.sca)
Etiquette: the noise you don't make while eating soup.
Maybe lost email, believing itself to be unwanted and neglected,
wanders off to seek other email in the same situation. Eventually
these messages get together with each other, form colonies of their
own, breed, and produce... spam.
The typical man oils the squeaky wheel when it becomes annoying.
The smart man realizes that all the wheels on the cart are working
together, and checks the others at the same time. The truly wise
man doesn't wait for squeaks to check on their condition.
-- Monica Cellio on tantrum-based management
"We are Microsoft of Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assim -"
General Protection Fault at BORG32.DLL
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
Programming today is a race between software engineers
striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the
Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the
Universe is winning.
-- Rich Cook
Oh bother, said the Borg, we've assimilated Pooh.
I've got a mind like a...what's that thing called that you use
to strain spaghetti?
There's no such thing as an over-engineered solution, just
under-engineered problems.
-- Steve Jensen (incipient engineer)
I like to give home-made gifts. Which one of the kids would
you like?
"Checks and balances" does *not* mean writing the checks while
ignoring the balances.
I am Ornithopter of the Borg. I am insignificant.
It sure would be nice if we got a day off for the president's
birthday, like they do for the queen. Of course, then we would have a
lot of people voting for a candidate born on July 3 or December 26,
just for the long weekends.
Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher.
That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number.
For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then
the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That's
what happens to cheese when you leave it out.
If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world
peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the
looting started.
Rome was not implemented in a day.
Tongue: a variety of meat, rarely served because it clearly
crosses the line between a cut of beef and a piece of dead cow.
- Henry Beard
Division is useless. You will be approximated.
- Pentium of Borg
Re: Neil Gaiman, and Modern Comics
"The word `masterbate' was censored out of one of the stories. He said
Karen Berger told him, `It is official policy. People don't masterbate
in the DC universe.' To which Neil replied, `That's why they all wear
funny costumes.'"
The purpose of time is to keep everything from happening at once.
It's not working.
Nothing arouses more hope than the first four hours of a diet.
Can God write a check for a sum so large that he can't cover it?
I can. If God can't, what does that say about his omnipotence?
- Dani Zweig
In California, "on time" doesn't mean anything at all. An
appointment for a meeting at three o'clock on Tuesday indicates
that there won't be a meeting and there might not be a Tuesday.
Few words and no numbers have any meaning west of the Nevada
border.
- P. J. O'Rourke
One sometimes finds advice about life in the oddest places. I
saw a plastic bag the other day that warned me "To avoid danger
of suffocation, keep away from babies and small children." And
they always seemed so cute and harmless!
- Fred Wamsley
I have finally thought of the ultimate villain for the comics:
Physics Man. Physics Man's only power would be to enforce the
laws of physics. Colossal Boy would collapse under his own weight.
Laurel Gand would suffer time dilation. Spider Man would get
blood cancer. Superman would have to eat a WHOLE lot or spend
months at a time in close orbit around the sun. Batman would
be on a respirator. Kitty Pride would be twenty-three.
Powergirl would own a br..well, you get the point;-)
-- charyma@wkuvx1.bitnet
I'll get a life as soon as I can find the FTP site.
-anonymous
I've known a number of CMU undergrads who would qualify as
vegetarian alternatives, though I think most of them are in frats.
-Scott Fahlman on canabalism at CMU
Lord, give me the courage to change what I can, the wisdom to accept
that which I cannot change, and the heavy artillery to make up the
difference.
-- Patrick L. Humphrey
Something told Dorothy she wasn't in Kansas anymore. Maybe it
was the color of the sky; maybe it was the smell in the air; maybe
it was the road sign that said, "Welcome to Missouri."
Arval: (and a large fraction of my offhand comments, which are
*not* intended to cause discussion, do.)
Ellisif: Gee, do you really think so?
BAGEL: A round, hard, doughnut-shaped bakery product introduced
to America by Jewish immigrants. The derivation of the Yiddish
word is uncertain. Some possible sources are: `beygul' (an
encounter with the devil early in the morning); `baygal' (to
feel like one has a weasel in his stomach); `beykil' (a mouthful
of flannel); `bikkel' (to eat one's luggage); and `bakul' (a
brick with a hole in it).
-- Henry Beard
The couple of times I've played with cornettos, the finger holes
seemed completely irrelevant to what note came out the end.
- Bill Sommerfeld
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Water works better.
Psychiatrists say that one out of four people is mentally
ill. Check three friends; if they're ok, you're it.
Jason: Wanna go out tonight? Catch a movie? Miniature golf?
Veronica: I was thinking more along the lines of slitting Heather
Duke's wrists open, making it look like suicide.
Jason: Ah, now you're talking. I can be up for that.
- Heathers
So I have decided that from now on, everyone who I interview for a
job will be described as an Eskimo. "Luxembourg" sounds like an
Eskimo name, doesn't it? So does "Touretzky". We're ALL going
to be Eskimos. Witbrock, D'Ippolito, Young, Gusciora -- all
Eskimos. The EEO bureaucrats can go straight to hell. Pass the
blubber, guys.
- Dave Touretzky on Affirmative Action
This is nothing more than the entropic deterioration of text...
- book review
Vila: I think I have just made the biggest mistake of my life.
Orac: It is unlikely. I would predict there are far greater
mistakes waiting to be made by someone with your obvious
talent for it.
- Blake's Seven
(City on the Edge of the World)
The extreme always seems to make an impression.
- Heathers
Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite
as satisfying as an income tax refund.
- F. J. Raymond
If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a
"protected abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor",
and when was the last time you needed one?
It is not enough for a handful of experts to attempt the solution
of a problem, to solve it and then to apply it. The restriction
of knowledge to an elite group destroys the spirit of society and
leads to its intellectual impoverishment.
- Albert Einstein
The lawgiver, of all beings, most owes the law allegiance. He of
all men should behave as though the law compelled him. But it is
the universal weakness of mankind that what we are given to
administer we presently imagine we own.
- Herbert George Wells
It isn't the fact that the cats like to hang around while sex is
going on that annoys me: it's those little score cards they hold
up afterwards.
-Folo
Republican parents have no problem buying their kids toy guns.
Democrats refuse to do so. That is why their kids pretend to
shoot each other with dolls.
-John Carlson
The longer you stay in the mall, the longer your children will have
to listen to holiday songs on the mall public-address system, and
many of these songs can damage children emotionally. For example:
"Frosty the Snowman" is about a snowman who befriends some children,
plays with them until they learn to love him, then melts.
-Dave Barry
String literal too long (I let you have 512 characters, that's
3 more than ANSI said I should)
-Macintosh error message
...And the lord said, 'lo, there shall only be case or
default labels inside a switch statement'
-Macintosh error message
A typedef name was a complete surprise to me at this point
in your program
-Macintosh error message
Type in (cast) must be scalar; ANSI 3.3.4; page 39, lines 10-11
(I know you don't care, I'm just trying to annoy you)
-Macintosh error message
Call me paranoid but finding '/*' inside this comment makes
me suspicious
-Macintosh error message
This function has an explicit return type and deserves a
return value
-Macintosh error message
Too many errors on one line (make fewer)
-Macintosh error message
Symbol table full - fatal heap error; please go buy a RAM
upgrade from your local Apple dealer
-Macintosh error message
Of course the US Constitution isn't perfect, but it's a lot
better than what we have now.
Welfare is the art of taking the money you've earned and
giving it to someone who hasn't.
Mr. Chairman, listening to this debate, it has occurred
to me that the American people might wonder who is telling
the truth here. One side says, 'We are raising taxes but
we are cutting spending.' The other side says, 'You are
not cutting spending, you are raising spending and raising
taxes, and it is the same old tax-and-spend.'
I am going to put my money where my mouth is. I will
write out a check from my own personal funds payable to
Bill Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, $100,000,
if spending next year is less than this year. I will resign
my seat in Congress and I will write out 100 times, 'I
apologize to the Democrats, they were telling the truth.
They really did cut spending.'
- Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), from the
March 17, 1993 Congressional Record
Masochists are people who have pain confused with pleasure.
In a society which has television confused with entertainment,
Doritos confused with food, and Dan Quayle confused with a
national political leader, masochists are clearly less mixed
up than the rest of us.
- P. J. O'Rourke
Guns are always the best method for a private suicide.
Drugs are too chancy. You might miscalculate the dosage
and just have a good time.
- P. J. O'Rourke
Two guys in a Yugo were arrested last night in Oakland following
a push-by shooting incident.
Well-balanced meal: to have selected items from both the left
and right sides of the vending machine.
-Aleccia McDonald
If you were asked a hypothetical question, would you answer it?
More irregular verbs: I address the issues, you launch
ad-hominem attacks, he's a flaming maniac and should have
his access pulled.
-Dani Zweig
I find it incongruous that so many people who oppose government
intervention in the economy also favor capital punishment. Not
that there isn't merit to both stances, of course, but there *is*
something strange about granting the power of life and death to
people you don't trust to balance a checkbook.
-Dani Zweig paraphrasing an unknown source
If Thomas Jefferson thought taxation without representaion
was bad, he should see how it is with representation.
-Rush Limbaugh
Razors pain you
Rivers are damp
Acids stain you
Drugs cause cramp
Guns aren't lawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You may as well live
-Dorothy Parker
It's national clean-off-your-desk day. I think I found Elvis.
It was only after their population of fifty mysteriously shrank
to eight that the other seven dwarfs began to suspect Hungry.
Nowadays, when opportunity knocks, you have to unlock both
deadbolts, remove the chain, and turn off the burglar alarm...
If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed
power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to
the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence ...
and the courts must abide by that decision.
- US v Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals,
1969, 417 F.2d at 1006
There are two schools of thought on Nostradamus: either (1) he
had supernatural powers which enabled him to prophesy the future
with uncanny accuracy, or (2) he did for bullshit what Stonehenge
did for rocks.
-Cecil Adams
Is "tired old cliche" one?
In an Orkin Exterminating Co. survey of what pests Pittsburghers
fear most, 1.3% named their spouses and kids.
Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry
jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move.
clone, n -- 1. an exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone
of their product." 2. a shoddy, spurious copy, as in "their
product is a clone of our product."
Ted is a sick human being. We shouldn't hate him, we shouldn't
make fun of him, we shouldn't treat him as a pariah or a net.idiot
--above all, we shouldn't flame him. We should reach out to him
as a brother, with love and compassion, and operate on his brain.
- Gene Ward Smith
It's not that I object to people re-inventing the wheel;
what gets to me is watching them re-invent the flat tire.
- Todric
Is the word "spec" short for specification, or for speculation?
Dogs come when they are called.
Cats have answering machines and may get back to you.
Is there a Unix Fortran optimizer?
Yeah, "rm *.f".
If you love something, let it go. If it comes back...
it's probably depenedent on you.
Unix is the answer, but only if you phrase the question
*very* carefully.
On the other hand, we don't have gladiators, spectacles to the
death involving religious heretics, or some of the other fun
forms of entertainment genus homo has devised while waiting for
the cathode ray tube to open a direct link to the tackiness
center of the human spirit.
- Scott Fisher
My desk is not messy! It's just decaying into a lower energy
level faster than everyone else's.
A rose by any other name returns %DNS-E-UNKNOWNENTRY.
Gun control is hitting your target.
-Andrew Beal
Fight organized crime: stamp out the IRS.
Bumper sticker: DANGER! I drive like you do.
I cannot be fired. Slaves have to be sold.
I'd like to help you out. Which way did you come in?
Interwoven alignment preambles are not allowed.
If you have been so devious as to get this message, you
will understand it, and you will deserve no sympathy.
-Donald Knuth, The TeXbook, from the
chapter on errors and error nessages
Crime does not pay... as well as politics.
- A.E. Newman
What doesn't kill me better be able to run damn fast.
Meat is murder. Fish is justifiable ichthyocide.
- Ken Johnson, presumably a vegetarian
It's bad manners to apply cosmetics in public. It reminds
people you need them...
- P.J. O'Rourke, "Modern Manners: An Ettiquette Book
for Rude People"
The principal fact of life is, of course, death. Even very
young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the
concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make
threatening him with it much more effective...
- P.J. O'Rourke, "Modern Manners: An Ettiquette Book
for Rude People"
Proper behavior means always giving the appearance of unperturbed
grace. This appearance is much easier to achieve if you really
*don't* care about anything. This is why people always seem to be
on their best behavior right before they commit suicide...
- P.J. O'Rourke, "Modern Manners: An Ettiquette Book
for Rude People"
Skiing: the art of catching cold and going broke while rapidly
heading nowhere at great personal risk.
All right, you worthless *vermin*! No more Mister Nice Pope!
-Cerebus
I feel sorry for Cupid's mother. How'd you like to try to
toilet-train an armed kid who can fly?
"Mr. Hussein, do you think it was wise to go to war with pilots
who have played Nintendo for seven years?"
-Dick Locher
Saint Valentine was martyred, after all. Probably by single people.
-Karen Norteman
If a tree falls on a laboratory mouse, does it cause cancer?
Watership Down:
You've read the book. You've seen the movie. Now eat the stew!
- Dani Zweig
"Can heresy itself be a legitimate religion?" -Nilakantha the Simple
"A religion is a heresy with an adequate army." -Cariadoc
Milihelen: the amount of beauty required to launch one ship.
"If you could have a large sum of money, how much would you want?"
"All of it."
-Cerebus
A feature is a bug with seniority.
I would bet that the Great San Francisco Glaucoma Epidemic of
1992 will be one for the history books.
- Alan Furman
Fun fact: the estimated human LD-50 for marijuana is half
a metric tonne.
What's the best way to accelerate a Macintosh?
At 9.8 meters per second squared.
It's hard to seize the day when you first have to grapple
with the morning.
Americans have different ways of saying things. They say
"elevator", we say "lift"...they say "President", we say
"stupid psychopathic git"...
- Alexi Sayle
It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to
students that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential
programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
- E. W. Dijkstra
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should,
therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
- E. W. Dijkstra
The question of whether a computer can think is no more
interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
- E. W. Dijkstra
Life was simple before World War II. After that, we had systems.
- Grace Hopper
In pioneer days they used oxen for heavy pulling, and when one
ox couldn't budge a log, they didn't try to grow a larger ox.
We shouldn't be trying for bigger computers, but for more
systems of computers.
- Grace Hopper
And, of course, you have the commercials where savvy
businesspeople Get Ahead by using their MacIntosh computers to
create the ultimate American business product: a really
sharp-looking report.
- Dave Barry
Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
- Jeff Pesis
A crash is when your competitor's program dies. When your
program dies, it is an 'idiosyncrasy.' Frequently, crashes are
followed with a message like 'ID 02.' 'ID' is an abbreviation
for 'idiosyncrasy' and the number that follows indicates how
many more months of testing the product should have had.
-Guy Kawasaki, "The Macintosh Way"
pixel, n.: A mischievous, magical spirit associated with screen
displays. The computer industry has frequently borrowed from
mythology: Witness the sprites in computer graphics, the demons
in artificial intelligence, and the trolls in the marketing department.
- Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
An old puzzle asks how a barometer can be used to measure the height
of a building. Answers range from dropping the instrument from the
top and measuring the time of its fall to giving it to the building's
superintendent in return for a look at the plans. A modern version
of the puzzle asks how a personal computer can balance a checkbook.
An elegant solution is to sell the machine and deposit the money.
- Jon Bentley, More Programming Pearls
It's a well known fact that computing devices such as the abacus
were invented thousands of years ago. But it's not well known that
the first use of a common computer protocol occured in the Old
Testament. This, of course, was when Moses aborted the Egyptians'
process with a control-sea...
- Tom Galloway
In a way, staring into a computer screen is like staring into an
eclipse. It's brilliant and you don't realize the damage until
its too late.
- Bruce Sterling
And computers are getting smarter all the time: scientists tell
us that soon they will be able to talk to us. (By "they" I mean
"computers": I doubt scientists will ever be able to talk to us.)
- Dave Barry
The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as
smart as men, but that we will meanwhile agree to meet them halfway.
- Bernard Avishai
The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts
agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer
professionals. We cause accidents.
- Nathaniel Borenstein
If the automobile had followed the same development cyclee as the
computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles
per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
- Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld
It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is
possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should
be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty
silly in 5 years.
- John Von Neumann (ca. 1949)
C combines the power of assembly language with the flexibility
of assembly language.
When in doubt, use brute force.
- Ken Thompson
Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
- Albert Einstein
Anything is good and useful if it's made of chocolate.
Normal is...spending all day in a sick building with windows
that don't open and a thermostat that is seasonally dysfunctional
in order to make the environment consistently comfy and
user-friendly for the mainframe computer.
- Ellen Goodman
Religious Views of Life:
Taoism: Shit happens.
Confucianism: Confucius say, shit happens.
Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit.
Zen: What is the sound of shit happening?
Hinduism: This shit happened before.
Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.
Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.
Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to *us*?
Atheism: I don't believe this shit.
Agnosticism: What is this shit?
ADA: Something you need to know the name of to be
an Expert in Computing. Useful in sentences
like, "We had better develop an ADA awareness."
Bug: An elusive creature living in a program that
makes it incorrect. The activity of "debugging,"
or removing bugs from a program, ends when people
get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed.
Cache: A very expensive part of the memory system of a
computer that no one is supposed to know is there.
Design: What you regret not doing later on.
Documentation: Instructions translated from Swedish by
Japanese for English-speaking persons.
Economies of scale: The notion that bigger is better.
In particular, that if you want a certain amount
of computer power, it is much better to buy one
biggie than a bunch of smallies. Accepted as an
article of faith by people who love big machines
and all that complexity. Rejected as an article
of faith by those who love small machines and
all those limitations.
Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.
Information Center: A room staffed by professional
computer people whose job it is to tell you why
you cannot have the information you require.
Information Processing: What you call data processing
when people are so disgusted with it they won't
let it be discussed in their presence.
Machine-indepenent program: A program that will not run
on any machine.
Meeting: An assembly of computer experts coming together
to decide what person or department not represented
in the room must solve the problem.
Minicomputer: A computer that can be afforded on the budget
of a middle-level manager.
Office Automation: The use of computers to improve efficiency
in the office by removing anyone you would want to
talk with over coffee.
On-line: The idea that a human being should always be
accessible to a computer.
Pascal: A programming language named after a man who would
turn over in his grave if he knew about it.
Performance: A statement of the speed at which a computer
system works. Or rather, might work under certain
circumstances. Or was rumored to be working over
in Jersey about a month ago.
Priority: A statement of the importance of a user or a program.
Often expressed as a relative priority, indicating that
the user doesn't care when the work is completed so long
as he is treated less badly than someone else.
Quality control: Assuring that the quality of a product does
not get out of hand and add to the cost of its
manufacture or design.
Regression analysis: Mathematical techniques for trying to
understand why things are getting worse.
Strategy: A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated
until sometime after those creating it have left the
organization.
Systems programmer: A person in sandals who has been in the
elevator with the senior vice president and is
ultimately responsible for a phone call you are to
receive from you boss.